ACTING UP

WASILLA — A handful of Valley parents and teachers are delighted their children are acting out this summer.

Youths ages 6 to 17 have spent the better part of the past two weeks immersed in the acting arts at Valley Performing Arts’ annual Summer Theatre Arts Program. Overall, 33 young actors are taking this year’s crash course, learning how to emote, sing, dance and even build sets and props.

“The goal is to have them learn as much about different aspects of theater as possible,” said Megan Webb, one of three teachers/directors conducting the camp. “They learn music, dance and acting. They build props and sets, and do costumes. We’re trying to get them involved as much as we can in a short amount of time and still learn all the material, the songs and dancing.”

That material is for two performances tonight that highlight what participants have learned. Beginning at 6:30 p.m. at VPA in Wasilla, 22 younger children will perform “Lights! Camera! Action!” followed by 12- to 17-year-olds presenting “Aladdin Jr.”

The actors are really doing well, Webb said. “They’re doing a lot of work. [‘Aladdin Jr.’] has a lot of singing and a lot of lines to memorize,” she said.

On the afternoon before the big show, VPA buzzed with activity as young actors donned costumes, put finishing touches on sets and rehearsed for the evening’s performance.

Anthony Phillips is 14 and already a veteran actor. This is his fifth year at summer theater and he’s also participated in VPA performances of “Carousel” and “Inherit the Wind.” He relishes his role as the evil Jafar in “Aladdin Jr.”

Playing the bad guy “is amazing,” he said, adding he plans to bring “more evil” to the role. “I love the bad guy and just getting that evilness out there.”

What brings him back every summer for the theater camp is Webb. “This is where I actually want to be,” Anthony said.

He also practices at home, writing his lines on a mirror so he can observe his facial expressions while memorizing them.

While Phillips is one of the veterans of the afternoon group, Nicheala Dillingham, 12, is a first-time Summer Theatre Arts Program attendee. She’s a narrator for “Aladdin Jr.,” an important part that helps set the mood for the audience and actors.

She admits to feeling “just a little” pressure with the performance looming.

“I like it,” she said. “It’s fun, and I like the friends, the people, the acting.”

She’s learned “tons” at the camp, “like how to block scenes and stuff — that’s to get them done, learn them — and that if you [mess up], you just keep on going.”

For 13-year-old Sarah Norton, acting comes naturally.

“I really, really like acting and I want to be an actress when I grow up,” she said. “We practice a lot; the dancing and the singing are a lot of work. It was pretty hard, because we had to keep doing it over and over because we kept forgetting.”

Now all the actors know their parts and Sarah promises a first-class performance. It may even be as polished as the acting she does at home.

“Yeah, I, like, fake cry a lot with my mom and she freaks out,” Sarah said when asked if she uses her talent on her parents. “It works.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.